What a mess. This is scary . I HATE abortion But I LOVE women and they should all have ACCESS to birth control. How did things go so wrong?

The article is extremely long so I am including the link and some pieces of the article. i just think that being pro-life shouldn't mean people cut all funding and availability of BIRT CONTROL , it's wrong and could cause more expensive problems later. Yes I want women to not abort their children but isn't it best, all the way around, if they can get birth control and not get pregnant when they aren't willing to or able to support children?

(Reuters) - Even as a national debate rages over contraception insurance, tens of thousands of low-income women and teenagers across the United States have lost access to subsidized birth control as states slash and restructure family planning funds.

the Texas funding cut prompted Planned Parenthood to shut down 11 clinics. It also has jeopardized a $40 million family-planning program run as a Medicaid extension.

The program provides free birth control and annual exams to 130,000 low-income women of reproductive age who don't qualify for regular Medicaid. The federal government pays 90 percent of the cost; Texas puts up just $4 million a year.

About 40 percent of women in the Texas program get subsidized care from Planned Parenthood clinics, but a new state law blocks those clinics from participating. The Obama administration has said that violates federal Medicaid rules. If neither side compromises, the program will likely close by the end of March.

That infuriates Jonee Longoria, a single mother in Houston who relied on the program for free services for several years as she put herself through college. "I had one child living in poverty and I didn't want another," Longoria said.

She now works for a social service agency and refers many clients to the program for contraception. Without it, she said, "where would they go?"

Advocates of defunding Planned Parenthood say they regret any service disruptions for poor women. But they call it a necessary price to pay to take a moral stance on abortion.

"We're just doing what we think is best," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life,

Replies

Misinformation you mean. For starters, it is not a "fetus" at the moment of fertilization.

Quoting Valerie731:

The way the "pill" usually prevents pregnancy is by ending it. The egg is/can be fertilized, however the hormones in the "pill" create such a volatile environment that the fetus is usually aborted before it attaches to wall of the uterus. Every once in a while, a woman gets pregnant while on the "pill", when actually, most women get pregnant, only a very few realize it. Just information...not opinion.

I am also pro-life. Abortion is not something I want my money going toward. We should not have to pay for other's birth control. If they are responsible they will get condoms or another contraceptive at the drug store, but the best thing is for people to take responsibilty for themselves by being abstinent until marriage and faithful thereafter.

The people (Catholics, etc) who are so against funding for birth control pills believe in waiting till after marriage before you have sex. Yes, if people did it that way then it wouldn't be such a big deal if you got pregnant. But here in the real world almost no one waits till marriage and you can't have it both ways. Either you give out birth control or you have a lot of abortions.

I wish the rest of the pro-life movement understood that Planned Parenthood is only "evil" because of funding always getting cut. Planned Parenthood used to offer prenatal services at so many locations...

If Planned Parenthood had their funding for prenatal services back, which do you think they would encourage people towards? Come to our prenatal clinic so we can collect thousands from medicaid or go get an abortion so we will only get a couple hundred? The prenatal clinic in my city's PP was so busy... until August of 2007 when they stopped accepting new patients because their funding was cut off.

I am also a Catholic and a nurse. My DIL thought sh might be PG and knew PP was in teh stripMall wher she worked, she went in on her Lunch hour and had a pregnancy check, it was Pos. the first thing out of the mouth of the PP worker was "When do you want to schedule the procedure" when she said she wanted her baby and needed Prenatal care they showed her the door, she came home in tears. Today this young man is my pride and joy and everybody thinks he's a nice young man. In all my years as a nurse, I have never heard of PP encouraging a young lady to keep her baby or offer counseling as to the traumatic effect an abortion can have on someone. Ther is a big difference in preventing pregnancy than having an abortion and FYI health clinics assoc. with Dept. of health offer free and lo cost BC.

We aren't talking about just funding for birth control , but if we were - something like 90% of catholics have at one time or another used birth control (which comes in many forms not just the pill) and is used for preventing pregnancy as well as treating other problems.

Back to the fact that this isn't just about BC , women have health needs like paps , well check ups , screenings for disease etc etc and these cuts are cutting off health care for women who are in the most vulnerable positions ..the poor . It's WRONG . and it's disgusting.

** Ninety-nine percent of women have used birth control at some point, including 98 percent of Catholic women, according to a 2011 report by the Guttmacher Institute.

Quoting TigerLily2901:

I read somewhere that Catholics??? Don't believe in birth control because it technically is an abortion because it makes the environment for a fetilized egg inhospitable. So some believe life begins at conception and birth control makes it stop after conception. Don't quote me but thats what I took from an article I read a while ago. Made sense to me. I'm anti-birth control for MYSELF because I just don't believe in altering my body like that and the side effects are waaay riskier, in my opinion, than another pregnancy. I don't support funding for birth control. It really is not that expensive to go out and buy a months supply of birth control or condoms. And I just don't see how anyone could be having so much sex they can't afford it. But I'm not against funding for it either. My personal opinion is that it shouldn't be mandatory to fund birth control but I'm also all for protecting women and I don't want a child to be born unwanted. So my personal opinion goes out the window in fear of problems I think it could cause like more abortions.

Studies also indicate that the majority of Americans believe insurance should cover the costs of birth control - and that most sexually active Americans use contraception. According to a 2011 Thomson Reuters survey, 77 percent of respondents believe that both private and government-assisted medical insurance should cover all or some of the costs of birth-control pills. Among those 35 and younger, the number rose to 83 percent.

Lizzie Jekanowski, 21, a Catholic cochairwoman of a group called BC Students for Sexual Health (a group that is not sanctioned by the administration at the Jesuit college), believes that the debate over birth control is nothing more than politics.

“A lot of us feel this isn’t a moral issue but purely a health one,’’ she says, adding that most people she knows on campus are sexually active and use contraceptives. “There’s really a divide between what we’re seeing in legislation and in the way people actually live their lives.’’

Birth control is not only used by the un-wed and the un-faithful. I am happily married with 2 children, have never slept with anyone else......and I use contraceptives. Without them, even married couples would end up with more children than they can afford to raise on their own.

Quoting starreyedcutie:

like

Quoting missmansmommy:

I am also pro-life. Abortion is not something I want my money going toward. We should not have to pay for other's birth control. If they are responsible they will get condoms or another contraceptive at the drug store, but the best thing is for people to take responsibilty for themselves by being abstinent until marriage and faithful thereafter.

You are AGAINST birth control pills, which prevent an egg from being released and/or fertilized so that no pregnancy takes place, but you are FOR women getting an IUD, which scrapes a fertilized and implanted egg off the lining of a woman's uterus? Seriously?!?

I also see you're a big advocate of NFP. That's great for people who have regular periods (I NEVER did until I went on BC), but it does NOTHING for women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome or a myriad of OTHER medical/health related issues that artificial hormones can help. How are condoms or NFP going to help THOSE women? They're NOT. And last time I checked, there wasn't a doctor around who would insert an IUD without payment in full AHEAD of time.

Women who chose to go on BC pills to prevent pregnancey ARE taking responsibility for their own reproductive lives! I was on BC when I was married to my first husband--which I got at Planned Parenthood (even with TWO incomes, I couldn't afford a private doctor)--because I REFUSED to have children until he proved to me he could keep a job for at least a year. (Which, BTW, he never did.) And before you make some "brilliant" comment on my "poor choice" for a husband, you should know that he raped me--but in accordance with the "good Christian upbringing" I had--and to keep the religious-right freaks from calling ME a "slut", "whore" or "prostitute"--I married him. You really can learn to love anyone, unless they're trying to beat you to death. I divorced him, even though my very religious father pointed out that "God disapproves of divorce." I'll bet he "disapproves" of suicide, too--and that's what staying married to that man would have been.

It is ALSO thanks to PP that I didn't die of cervical cancer. That was diagnosed while I was putting myself through college and STILL couldn't afford a private doctor.

This is just another move by the male dominated religious right-wing to subjugate women. Viagra was covered by insurance LONG before any form of birth control was. What that should tell every woman is that, to the men who are running this show, it's much more important for them to get an erection so they can impregnate a woman (which keeps her dependent and "submissive") than it is for a woman to have a say in her own body, health and reproductive rights.

One more thing--before anyone starts screaming that I'm some sort of a "left-wing liberal", you should know that I'm a life-long Republican (albeit a moderate one) who is 51 years old, waited until my mid 30's to have children, and I've voted in every election since 1978--federal, state and local.

I'm with all the posters here who believe it is better--and FAR cheaper for the taxpayers--to prevent an unwanted pregnancy than to have to take care of unplanned (and, probably unwanted) children after they're born. I'd also like to point out that while someone cited that "unplanned pregnancies have gone down in recent years", you really need to factor in the faction of society that actually DOES plan pregnancies so they can get on welfare. And YES!! I've met quite a few!

Something to consider that my mother and grandmother use to say:

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

That goes for our tax dollars as well.

Quoting notjstanothrmom:

I didn't read the article. It's not clicky.

But things close all the time. People need to be able to think ahead. Go to the doctors and get an IUD and then don't pay the bill in full and make payments or something. I honestly see what you're saying, I don't think funding should be cut, but I also think that people need to be able to take responsibility of their own reproductive life.

Quoting Lillymygirl:

You seem to be missing a lot of information that could be found in the article. For example 11 clinics have closed and the nearest one now has a waiting list and closest appointment is August. Also as wonderful as NFP is , it's not for everyone. who offers free condoms? Not the CLOSED clinics .

Quoting notjstanothrmom:

Then they should go to the library and learn about NFP or refrain until they can afford it. I know what it's like to have no money but if you can get yourself to Planned Parenthood, then you can scrape up $10 and pay for a pack of pills that could prevent you from getting pregnant. If not, they offer free condoms which will also protect you from STD's.

Quoting Lillymygirl:

Quoting notjstanothrmom:

I am pro-life and will not use birth control for contraceptive because personally it is basically like an abortion *to me* if my baby cannot implant. I do believe everyone should have access to birth control and everyone will, but I don't feel it's the governments place to provide these services because birth control is very affordable anyways.

Quoting randi1978:

How are they "doing what's right" by making it harder for women to access contraceptives?

Oh, wait.....even birth control is abortion to some of them backwoods yahoo's.....Single women are supposed to be nuns until Prince fucking Charming comes along with a marriage proposal.

If people can not afford it then they can not afford it.

The state network, which once provided 220,000 women a year free and low-cost birth control, cervical cancer tests and diabetes screenings, will now serve just 40,000 to 60,000, officials said.

Traci_momof2 - sorry to bust your bubble but going by your post you are in no way a practicing catholic. You seem to have overlooked every tenet the church has on fertility. NFP is the ONLY acceptable form of birth control allowed by the church because it's the only one given by god. ALL others are considered wrong because they interfere with the unity between husband & wife and/or cause abortion, this includes your current method which is basically sterilization. This is all in the catechism. Catholics also believe that life begins at fertilization not just implantation. Something that prevents implantation is considered an abortive method too. The fact that you participate in something dealing with the Eucharist while openly going against such a big rule (for lack of a better word) is in the church's eyes sinful. I know many women in the church break this same rule but the church has never wavered on this stance.
My personal comment is that if you feel so strongly about your position then you might want to consider switching denominations or giving up the church all together. I'm in no way judging you. I use to be catholic myself & did much research in this area. I just could no longer support a church that said if it was life or death for me while pregnant with a not yet viable baby that I had to die also rather than get an abortion that would save one of us.